20
A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
1772.
August.
world about half a century ago. Their ladies are delicate, and have agreeable features; but the characteristic jealousy of the men still locks them up, and deprives them of a happiness which the country women, amidst all their distresses, enjoy. Many of the better people, are a sort of petite noblesse, which we would call gentry, whose genealogical pride makes them unsociable and ignorant, and causes a ridiculous affectation of gravity. The landed property is in the hands of a few ancient families, who live at Funchal, and in the various towns on the island.
Madeira consists of one large mountain, whose branches rise every where from the sea towards the centre of the isle, converging to the summit, in the midst of which, I was told, is a depression or excavation, called the Val by the inhabitants, always covered with a fresh and delicate herbage. The stones on the isle, which we examined, seemed to have been in the fire, were full of holes, and of a blackish colour; in short, the greater part of them were lava. A few of them were of the kind which the Derbyshire miners call dunstone. The soil of the whole island is a tarras mixed with some particles of clay, lime, and sand, and has much the same appearance as some earths we since found on the isle of Ascension. From this circumstance, and from the excavation of the summit of the mountain, I am induced to suppose, that in some remote period, a volcano has produced the lava, and the
ochreous
